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friday
January 18
Further Study:
As stated previously, the days of the Creation week
are numbered and identified as being composed of a dark period, the
evening, and a light period, the morning. There is no reasonable way
in which to interpret these days other than as being like the days we
experience today. Some have appealed to such texts as Psalm 90:4
and 2 Peter 3:8 when arguing that each Creation day actually repre-
sents 1,000 years. This conclusion is not suggested by the text and
does nothing to resolve the issue created by those who think that these
days represent billions of years.
Also, if the days in Genesis represented long epochs, one would
expect to find a succession in the fossil record that matches the suc-
cession of the living organisms created in the successive six Creation
“days.” Thus, the first fossils should be plants, which were created on
the third “day.” Next should be the first water animals and the air ani-
mals. Finally, we should find the first land animals. The fossil record
does not match this sequence. Water creatures come before plants,
and land creatures come before air creatures. The first fossil fruit trees
and other flowering plants appear after all these other groups. The
only point of similarity is that humans appear last in both accounts.
“Of each successive day of creation, the Sacred Record declares
that it consisted of the evening and the morning, like all other days
that have followed.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets,
p. 112.
“But the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week
required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment,
strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth com-
mandment. It makes indefinite and obscure that which God has made
very plain. It is the worst kind of infidelity; for with many who profess
to believe the record of creation, it is infidelity in disguise.”—Ellen G.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p. 91.
Discussion Questions:
l Even from a nonliteralist interpretation of Genesis, two points
are obvious: nothing was random in the act of Creation, and
there was no common ancestry for the species. Now, along comes
Darwinian evolution, which in its various versions teaches two
things: randomness and common ancestry for all species. How,
then, does one interpret Genesis through a theory that, at its
most basic level, contradicts Genesis at its most basic level?
l Why is it important to understand that science, for all the
good that it does, is still merely a human endeavor?
l All science has to study is a fallen world, one that is very
different in many ways from the original Creation. Why is it
important to keep that truth ever before us?
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